


First Transcendence

by Oakentide



Series: SAO Pride Week [3]
Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 21:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18432872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oakentide/pseuds/Oakentide
Summary: Written for SAO Prideweek 2019's Day 3 prompt. First Transcendence.Eugeo finds a higher calling, but never loses sight or grip on what's important to him.





	First Transcendence

It was in that pregnant pause during the fight with Administrator-sama, just after she had wounded Cardinal, that everything I’d read and contemplated in the Great Library culminated in a plan to have all that I wanted and save everyone. The final inspiration was the memory fragment in the ceiling, hauntingly familiar, and obviously held the true memories of Alice, my childhood friend. 

Somehow, a power beyond that of Sacred Arts had altered my memories, removing my best friend from them. This inadvertently left the gap in my memories which Administrator-sama exploited. Prior to this, I did recall a boy screaming for me to do something to stop Alice from being taken by an Integrity Knight, but nothing else about him in particular. Logic would suggest that this was Kirito, who was removed from this world at the same time, and back to another, probably his world of origin. As the immortal of this party, it fell to him to hold myself, the tip of the vanguard. I had to become one with a sword that could hurt her.

The durability value of a sword didn’t naturally diminish over time as the maximum Life value of a person did. There was some fundamental unity between Objects and living beings, and Sacred Arts existed which allowed movement in at least one direction between them. Cardinal had seen and memorised the same full list of commands that Administrator-sama had access to. Somehow, Kirito had used Incarnation to call forth equipment from another world into this one. I could live forever by his side and accompany him to whichever worlds were his next destination, as the Blue Rose Sword, the counterpart to his sword, the black one. It wouldn’t have stopped me, but seeing Kirito’s horror on appraising the Sword Golem suggested that I wasn’t supplanting a living being from a prior world in any other sword he’d used, and that the power of these weapons will be unmatched wherever Kirito may choose to go.

~

Time froze again after Administrator-sama and I struck each other.

My assessment of the situation was not exactly wrong, but incomplete. I had no awareness until the sword I became was destroyed. I couldn’t act of deliberate will, which only existed as the love I had for my friend and the need to protect everyone, both transmuted into the killing intent of an embodied sword. I did manage to disrupt whatever communication network the three hundred swords used to comprise the Golem, and Administrator-sama paid no mind to these subjects as they clattered in a heap. That I was reverted to human form, albeit with mortal wounds, was my proof that their souls were intact and safe, hidden somewhere in the sparkling ceiling.

I thought I might have failed when I realised I had been bisected, and only helpless to watch Kirito losing a duel with Administrator. He landed beside my broken body, silently apologising for his failure and weakness. I called out to him, my lungs only capable of soft, hoarse whispers, and poured as much of my Life as I could control into that extension of myself, the broken Blue Rose Sword. 

I faded until I felt him grip my body, only dimly aware that our foe, Administrator, had been vanquished.  
As I looked into his eyes, I felt the hollow vortex deep inside him. I realised, properly, why I never wavered in believing his assurance that I was his best friend, even after inferring he’d traversed many worlds, possibly countless worlds, before his journey through this one. This man’s intuition for the underlying structure on which worlds operated made him amazing and history-changing wherever he went, but this isolated him from everyone that he cared about. He’d never had a friend who knew him as a human being, rather than as a means to survive. 

I saw the vastness of the night sky. A space longing to be filled, illuminating the whole world, all worlds, allowing life to flourish but never connected to any of it. An empty, lonely vacuum. The discipline which honed his spirit was the same as the craftsmanship that tempered the Gigas Cedar Tree. He was never greedy for a moment and seemed only to take on the troubles and burdens of those in the worlds he crossed. 

Underneath conscious apprehension, I’d become familiar with the medium on which both objects and beings were predicated. I was neither and both. In one confident yet desperately fervent moment, as Kirito head my head in his hands, I was also the memory fragment which had restored one of my memories, which I held against him. I needed Kirito to leave this world knowing he had two friends, not one, and that he had a second childhood in this world, one infinitely superior to the lonesome prison from which he surely originated, which for him never once bore any mention in our time together. As our hands touched for the last time, I felt dormant, sealed memories scurry from my heart to his. If he could recall crafting the leather scabbard, over time he might recall everything else from those first eleven years. The source of these new memories, the full memory fragment which held the memories Alice had as a child, faded once its contents were subsumed into me, and I was soon to follow. 

~

It felt like an eternity before I became truly awake once more. I was standing, yet floating, in a bright, vast sky. I took in the pale crimson of a late afternoon sky, colours I knew as a precursor of a sunny, productive day to come, as an omen. There was no sun, and no matter which way I looked, I couldn’t tell from which direction the light came. It was some time until I noticed a man standing next to me, in a strange white coat that carried the air of both a commoner and a high-ranking sage, chiefly through his casual slouch, hands in his pockets, and the assured certainty with which he spoke.  
“My name is Kayabara Akihiko.”  
He extended his hand, and I shook it as I replied.

“Eugeo. This place, is it where he goes while moving between worlds?”  
“Who is ‘he’?”  
“My friend and partner. Kirito.”

He sighed, but with the mirth you’d ascribe to a chuckle.

“I was right in choosing him. He always seems to be at the centre of it whenever anything interesting happens. To answer your question, no. This is the final destination - a place he doesn’t even know exists. Most humans don’t, at least they don’t know it well enough to reach here.”  
“That armour... has a second person come here from a game? What was your ‘original sword skill’?”

I hoped I looked as confused as I felt. People didn’t live in games, and surely didn’t come from them either. I recognised pieces from some of my earlier conversations Kirito about swordsmanship in that statement in the Sacred Tongue, but just shook my head.

“I don't know what that is. I'm from 'Underworld', and it's the only world I've heard of.

“Ah. So a Seed world, but not a game, and you’re not aware of this. You might then regard me as your Creator. Please tell me as much as you can about how you might have influnced your flow of consciousness.  
"What do you mean by that?"  
"If you’re from a Seed world, then you must be the first self-aware artificial intelligence to transcend your physical strata.”  
He had a fond look, one which reminded me of a father proud of something great one of his children had done.  
“That is, your consciousness transcended the... cube of light, I suppose... on which it was stored."

It was odd. I didn’t feel like I had achieved. There was more I wanted to do. Regret began to well up over my last choices.

“Then, will I ever see him again?”  
“It’s too early to say. What’s more important is that _he_ will see _you_ again. He gave more of himself to you than to anyone, and I imagine he’ll need it back someday.”

I felt panic in my voice, surging through and washing up against the lulling serenity of this place, and grew agitated quickly. I had to act.

“What do I need to do?”  
“You’ve already done it. You will live on forever in that sword."

The man stopped speaking, and gave me space to consider all that had just been said as I calmed down again. 

“Then... it all worked out? I insisted on trying to do everything myself, and died for it. I still don't know if it was the right way to go about things, but I saw too great an opportunity and acted rashly."  
"Really. It's funny that you say that. I knew that boy for two years in another world, and his time there ended with a similar sacrifice.”  
“Where?”  
“The only world that I created directly. Aincrad.”  
“Aincrad!? That’s not a sword style, but a world!?”

A wry smile developed which had the same quality of fondness as before. He might have been proud of myself, or Kirito, or both of us. Perhaps proud of the hand he in what both of us had become.  
“We now have all the time in the world. I’m sure you have many questions. So do I.”


End file.
